The Lakers’ Rajon Rondo, center, is picked up by teammates LeBron James (23) and Kyle Kuzma (0) and swarmed by others after hitting the game-winning basket as time expired against the Celtics on Thursday night in Boston. (Photo by Maddie Meyer/Getty Images)

Editor’s note: This is today’s edition of the Purple & Bold newsletter. The newsletter is written three times a week by NBA reporters Kyle Goon and Mirjam Swanson. To receive the free newsletter by email, sign up here.

Thursday night in the TD Garden visitor’s locker room, amid a swarm of media and tall men assembling their postgame fashion ensembles, a small figure wearing a Lakers jersey was working on his handles.

Rajon Rondo’s 7-year-old son, Pierre, was dribbling a ball that was several times bigger than his head. And he wasn’t just dribbling up and down, but attempting to thread it between his legs, which could not part wide enough to accommodate the traversal.

“How do you do this?” he asked his father, who was changing in the nearby locker.

Rondo looked down, watching him with a white towel wrapped around his waist. He didn’t frown as he watched the boy attempting a move he’s done a million times – but he didn’t smile either.

“I’ll teach you,” he said.

That might be Rondo’s role as a father, but it’s also his role as a Laker: to teach, to guide, to lead.

Earlier that morning at shootaround, as he sat on the scorer’s table in the arena he called home for nine seasons, he talked about leadership:

“You just can’t pick and choose when you’re going to be a leader,” he said. “Has to be every day. Can’t wake up when you’re not feeling well and not give your team your best effort or your best leadership skills. Me, personally, learned that a long time ago from my vets, (Kevin Garnett) in particular. Just being a consistent leader every day.”

Among the many fitting details in Thursday night’s thrilling game-winner over the Celtics was the courtside company: Garnett had a front row seat, and he was one of the mob to rush Rondo after the 129-128 victory while wearing a green Boston jersey with Rondo’s name and number on the back.

Rondo called it a “surreal” night: The home crowd, famously hostile to the Lakers, cheered him during his introductions. Throughout the evening he was swarmed by Boston media and Garden staffers he’s known throughout his career. Even Rondo said Boston is “still always home.”

At least on offense, he looked comfortable enough: Rondo was 7 for 11 from the field, splashing three 3-pointers on the Lakers’ record-setting 3-point shooting night. He also had 10 assists.

Rondo pointed out that before games, he practices a similar routine to what happened on the game-winning shot: He bounces a ball up high to himself, then grabs it and flicks it toward the hoop. With the time running out last night, no other shot would have worked.

His teammates couldn’t have been happier for him.

“I bet it meant the world,” second-year forward Kyle Kuzma said. “He hit that shot in the Garden, against the team that everybody knows him for. And to come back, be rushed by the team, touched by the Lakers and sit in KG’s lap (a joke), pretty crazy. Definitely storybook. So I’m very happy for him.”

Even though the Big Trade for New Orleans’ Anthony Davis never happened, three teammates had left in the 48 hours since their previous game. It was a tough spot for the Lakers.

Rondo himself suggested that winning would help heal the wounds the team has suffered in the past week and a half. And it more ways than one, it was fitting that he hit a shot that could become a catalyst in the Lakers’ season.

Consider that Rondo has been ever-present with the team, despite all the games he has missed to injury. Even when he was hurt, he traveled when permitted, and he scrimmaged as much as he could. He has a galvanizing influence on the locker room – not just a work ethic, but a playground mentality that he wants to be on the court because it’s fun.

After Tuesday morning’s shootaround in Indiana, Rondo was the last one off the court, holding up the team bus on the way back to the hotel. As teammates walked off, telling him they were going to take a nap, Rondo wanted to finish his routine: “(Expletive) a nap,” he said.

After the disastrous loss later that night, the Lakers were understandably lost in the aftermath. But Rondo helped organize scrimmage sessions on the off-day when there was no official practice: The Lakers did one-on-ones, two-on-twos, three-on-threes, and four on four. At the end of the TNT broadcast of the Celtics game, Chris Webber mentioned that he had heard how critical Rondo was in not only putting the workouts together but making them engaging.

Make no mistake: LeBron James is the team’s best player. He showed that again Thursday night, in a rare understated triple-double. His seven assists in the third quarter alone helped erase an 18-point Boston lead, and his dunks indicate that he’s close to full strength again, which is the best possible development for the Lakers.

But James is a general in the locker room, and the space between ranks sometimes shows. There were unsettled feelings in the team in recent weeks, with the implication that James was among the parties pushing for the Davis trade to happen. While James is a teammate, he wields influence far above the normal NBA player, and that gap, while somewhat intangible, is felt.

Rondo, on the other hand, will always be a player in the trenches. His natural joy and competitiveness has a way of winning over teammates, and his experience is a pillar to lean on. Moreover, he’s trusted by James as a fellow champion, so he can function as a bridge from James to the younger players.

It’s not as though the trade deadline has been easy for Rondo: He himself was discussed as a trade piece for Davis in at least one report, and that probably wasn’t pleasant to hear. It’s also worth noting that rookie Svi Mykhailiuk, whom he had struck up a casual friendship with, was traded while the Lakers were flying to Boston.

But Rondo survives, and he’s been through enough change to understand that he will get out on the other side. Now that the roster is essentially set for the rest of the season, he said he was prepared to compete for a playoff spot down the stretch – and his game Thursday night proved that he’s looking ahead.

Still, it was clearly fun for him to look back as well that evening, as he strolled out into the Boston night with his son. Pierre was 2 years old when Rondo left Boston, and he doesn’t have strong memories of being there. But even he seemed to grasp what the win meant to his father.

“He’s definitely happy,” Rondo said. “He asked me about if I was gonna be on SportsCenter tonight, so he understands what’s going on.”

THE NEXT BIG QUESTION

How do the trade pieces fit? Reggie Bullock and Mike Muscala are expected to join the Lakers in Philadelphia, and that could help the team’s flagging depth now that they’re down three players.

Bullock is a big guard, a strong 3-point shooter who can space the floor. Muscala is a fringe rotation player who wasn’t all that great for the 76ers this year, but he has value as a 3-point shooting big who might be able to play some stretch five. Both fit the mold of the catch-and-shoot players that James is accustomed to, and he seemed to like the additions.

“I think it improves our team,” he said. “It definitely creates more space for (Brandon Ingram), myself and for Rondo. And adding a shooter like Mike Muscala who spreads the floor extremely well, is going to be guarded by a lot of bigs, so he keeps the bigs out of the paint. And then adding Reggie, who was in the top five in makes and 3-point percentage, I think that’s going to help us out a lot as well.”

KEEP READING

Coming up later today we’ll have comments from Lakers general manager Rob Pelinka on the trades the Lakers made (and perhaps some comment on the craziness of potential trades of the last week).

Kyle Goon covers the Lakers for the Southern California News Group. Before taking his talents to Los Angeles, he worked for The Salt Lake Tribune for eight years, covering everything from high school rodeo to the Utah Jazz. Gregg Popovich once baptized him by fire in a media scrum.

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